The Rise and Fall of the Extraordinary Jillysanschilly
by elanev91
Summary: James Potter and Lily Evans are both wildly successful YouTubers and Sirius cannot believe that people ship them enough to write erotic fanfiction about them.


**I know you have to request an AO3 account, but we're going to suspend disbelief, yeah?**

 **Infinite thanks to professor-riddikulus who named this and everything else in this story. Literally they are amazing and I owe them everything.**

 **ALSO THANKS FOR FRUSTRATEDPOET FOR CATCHING MY SHOE ERROR LOVE YOUUUU**

* * *

'Jesus christ, I cannot read anymore fanfiction today.'

James slammed the lid of his laptop harder than he'd intended and leaned back into the sofa cushions. He'd been scrolling through this fanfiction site, Archive of our Own, with Sirius for hours to find something suitable to read for a video that he was planning to film. Trouble was, though, that a lot of what he was finding had a fair amount of explicit content, and he really didn't need to get into any more trouble with the YouTuber censors.

And, as it happens, reading porn someone wrote about you was more emotionally taxing than James had expected.

Sirius shook his head at him. 'You're going to break that fucking thing and then I don't want to hear you whining about it.'

James shot him a look. 'You sound like Remus.'

Sirius held his fingers up at him and turned back to his own laptop. 'How could you be done with this?' A slow smile started at the corner of Sirius' lips. 'I, for one, love reading about your long, hard —'

' _Alright_.' James held up a hand and Sirius immediately burst out laughing.

'Seriously, though, can you believe that people write this shit about you? Isn't it weird?'

'Obviously it's fucking weird. It's one thing if people are writing it about Star Wars or something —'

Sirius' eyes widened with excitement. 'People write fanfiction about Star Wars?!'

' — but I'm a real fucking person? That's just what gets me.'

'Okay, but wait, go back to the Star Wars thing.'

James rolled his eyes. 'No. You can look up Star Wars fanfiction on your own time.'

Sirius grinned. 'Do you think people write fanfiction about wookies? Their hairy, undulating bodies —'

James pushed up off the sofa and started towards the kitchen. 'I'm not listening to you!'

Sirius chuckled to himself as he scrolled back up to the top of his screen and started typing in the search bar. 'I bet they write fanfiction about wookies.'

* * *

There were a lot of things about being a YouTuber that James hadn't expected when he'd started making videos back in uni.

He never expected that anyone would really follow him. Never expected he'd be able to make a living making videos. He, never once, and especially not in those early years when he was pulling in a few pounds of AdSense money every few months if he was _lucky_ , imagined that he'd become… a brand. That he'd have a vlog channel and a website and merch and a company and a manager.

And while all of that — this life he'd accidentally worked himself into — still completely blew his mind, the thing that shook him the most was the fact that people cared so much about _him._

He understood people enjoying his videos, connecting with his content, being excited about the things he was creating. It was falling in love with a novelist because you love the stories they tell and the worlds they create (not that he was ever so big-headed as to think his videos even remotely counted on that level). And people cared about his content — they'd have to've for him to get where he did — but more and more often, he found that people cared about him individually.

Him, separated from his content.

And it wasn't that it bothered him, not really. He was surprised that people wanted to hear about his life and see what he got up to, but enough people asked and so he created a second channel and vlogged, and it required extra editing every week, but he liked the exercise well enough to keep doing it. He did Q&As, he opened up asks on his Tumblr, responded to questions on Instagram stories. He wasn't averse to sharing his life— in a lot of ways, it made him feel like he knew his followers because when he shared, a lot of them opened up, too.

He liked the community it created.

And, it was true, what he always said in his videos — he really did have one of the best, most supportive communities on the internet.

But, for all the good in his community, there was also a bit of bad.

A few years ago, he'd had a stalker — an actual stalker — that followed him to and from the gym every day and, while that was harmless enough at first, it wasn't long before she was stuffing weird notes through his letterbox and calling up the gym he went to to talk to his trainer and ask about what they'd done at the gym that day and then, a few times, he saw her loitering around places he frequented, like she was waiting for him to show up.

He'd eventually had to get the police involved.

He hadn't had anything _that_ intense in a while, thank god, but he did have people standing outside his house almost all the time. He wasn't sure how people figured out where he lived — he'd been careful, in his vlogging, to only start filming a few streets away from the one he actually lived on and to make sure that he never really started or stopped a vlog on the same street — but there were people out there all the time, people who just wanted to catch a glimpse of him, people who'd brought their kids for his autograph or a picture or something.

He'd had so many mothers yell at him for refusing to stand and take a million pictures — something that hurt him already anyway, because he _wanted_ to be able to talk with the people that watched his videos — when he was late for some meeting or another.

He tried, every time, to explain that people can't just be showing up outside his house and expect that he'll stand out there for an hour or invite them in or whatever it was they wanted from him.

It always made him feel awkward to complain about it, but honestly. You can't just show up outside someone's house.

Luckily, the negative aspects of the whole thing mostly seemed confined to him and his life — the comments on his videos and across his social media were largely positive. He hadn't really realised the lack of negativity at first — he'd gotten so used to tuning it out over the years that he thought he must be subconsciously ignoring negative comments — but then he'd done one of those 'reacting to negative comments' videos a few months ago and he'd had to go back _years_ to find anything really all that negative.

He really was so, so lucky.

* * *

'How about this?' Sirius turned his laptop around so James could see the screen. 'Bookshop AU, total fucking meet cute.'

They'd taken a bit of a break — and thank god because Sirius had followed James into the kitchen with his laptop an hour and a half before and started reading out the filthiest fanfiction he could find (including a story about the fucking _Veggie Tales_ that was going to be seared into James' memory forever) — but James had been unwilling to let this task linger on his to-do list for another day. He'd set the kettle on and grabbed a packet of gingernuts from the cupboard (and a packet of Nice biscuits for Sirius), and, once their tea was ready, James had brought Sirius back round.

It had taken a bit of effort — especially because Sirius had found a fic that was literally just every Disney character ever having sex — but he'd eventually managed to get Sirius focused again.

James leant closer now and knocked his glasses a bit further down his nose so he could read the summary of the story that Sirius had found. _James has been waiting for the last book in his favourite book series for over a year and, when he goes to the shop for the midnight opening, he's just about to grab the last copy — except maybe a beautiful redhead got there first._

It was rated alright — "teen audiences and up" probably meant a bit of swearing, maybe a kiss or two, but it was nothing he couldn't bleep in the edits if it came to that. He reached out and clicked on the story, and skimmed the first few sentences before scrolling and giving the whole thing — thankfully, only about 1800 words — a once over.

'Good, right?' Sirius said. 'I mean, I still think you should read the one where you're a sugar daddy, but —'

James held up a hand and Sirius grinned. 'So this is a go?'

James nodded. 'It's a go. Can you email me that story link so I can message the author?'

Sirius nodded, turned his laptop around, and began clicking.

'And,' James leant back in his seat so he was sitting up again, 'do you think I should really read it first so I know what I'm in for or should I do a kind of live reaction thing, too, and not read it until I'm on camera?'

Sirius only looked up briefly to raise an eyebrow at him. 'You know the answer to that question, don't you?'

James sighed and fell back into the sofa cushions. 'Reaction video it is.'

* * *

There were a lot of weird fucking things about your best mate being a famous YouTuber.

For one, you never quite understood what it was that he did all day or how he made enough money to live in central fucking London. You knew for a fact that his rent was absolutely absurd and it didn't make any goddamn sense that he made enough to pay for that flat because that flat was fucking gorgeous no matter how much you pretended otherwise.

It also never, ever stopped being weird as hell when people stopped him on the street. And mostly it was because his extra arse was always holding his _vlog camera_ (because he had different cameras for different things and _that_ didn't make any fucking sense either) over his head and chattering away into it as they were walking around like it was the most natural thing in the world and then people just start screaming. His _fans._ People who watched his videos and knew everything about him and loved him so much that they were willing to scream his name and dart into fucking traffic and make complete fools of themselves.

And he was always so gracious about it, too. And kind. That also didn't make sense, but that had more to do with the fact that he was a great person and you were kind of an arsehole. A _lovable_ arsehole, but still.

He's had people standing outside his house for the last, like, year, and maybe he wouldn't have people doing that shit if he wasn't so fucking nice to everyone.

But the weirdest thing about having a famous best mate, as Sirius Black discovered, was that people write explicit fanfiction about him.

A lot of very explicit fanfiction.

Now, he wasn't some kind of freak that _wanted_ to read porn about his best friend — it seemed important to establish that from the outset. He and James had just been talking about it the week before and then he'd spent the entire afternoon that day at James' flat scrolling through Archive of Our Own to _find_ some fanfiction so that James could film some kind of video for his channel, and though that afternoon should have been enough to prove to Sirius that this was all very, _very_ real, Sirius had something of a curious streak (a streak that was very difficult to tame after a night out at the pub) and James had outright refused to let him click the "Explicit" filter so that they could find the really interesting stuff.

And so that was how he ended up at the bottom of a very dark (and incredibly kinky) Archive of our Own hole that he didn't know how to even begin to climb back out of.

If Remus had been home he would have just said, 'Close your browser, you fucking idiot,' but Remus _wasn't_ home because he was up in bloody Edinburgh for some fucking teachers' conference, and, anyway, it wasn't that simple.

Sirius had read things that were going to be burned into his brain for the rest of eternity. How do you just _close your browser_ after that?

And, really, he wanted to reiterate that he had not set out to do this, once you've spent an hour and a half scrolling through two dozen of the raunchiest things you've ever read — entirely for the cringe factor — you start to notice things that don't have anything to do with the fact that these writers were talking about your best mate's penis in entirely too much detail.

You know, like the fact that there were only two dozen of these stories. Like the fact that none of them were particularly well written.

And that wasn't to say that Sirius thought he was Charles bloody Dickens — the inexhaustible prick wrote _far_ too much — but he knew that he wrote better than this jilyx69 who had written most of these stories on the Archive.

And anyway, who even thought sixty-nine jokes were funny anymore?

Well, he did, but that was entirely beside the point.

The point was that that night, completely pissed and overwhelmed by over the top descriptions of James' apparently-throbbing twelve incher, Sirius Black opened up an Archive of Our Own account of his own and began crafting what he — jokingly — thought of as his rise to jily fandom fame.

* * *

 _Excerpt from 'Get Low'_

 _By jilysanschilly on Archive of our Own_

 _Published: 2017-01-07_

 _Kudos: 29 Comments: 9 Hits: 34_

' _Pop that arse!'_

 _Lily tuend around and put her hands on er hips. 'How do you pop an arse?'_

 _James shrugged clumsily and spilt his drink all down hismelf. 'Well, I do y know do I? I don't have an arse.'_

 _Lily thought that was incredibly stupid but also he was fine and so she back, back, backed it up and popped her arse._

* * *

When Sirius woke up the next morning — with a _screaming_ fucking headache, mind — he had nine emails from Archive of Our Own about comments on the story he'd posted the night before. He opened the first one, not at all sure what to expect (except it had better be praise because he was _not_ in the mood for criticism this morning or ever) and was, thankfully, pleasantly surprised —

 _From: Archive of Our Own_

 _To: Sirius Black_

 _[AO3] Comment on Get Low_

 _Jilydaydreams left the following comment on Get Low:_

 _Omg this was such a good first fic! No one really writes for them yet, I'm so glad we have a new writer! Can't wait to read your next fic :))_

 _Posted: 2017-01-08 05:16:10 -0400_

Sirius stared at the email for a minute. Maybe his brain was still fucking saturated in alcohol (likely) or maybe he was just dehydrated (also likely), but there was no way that drunken story was good enough that people would want to see him write more.

Granted, he wrote it, so it was at least _good,_ but he'd only just started. It couldn't be great. Not yet.

He clicked the "Reply to this comment" link, typed something that was definitely too nice ( _glad you liked it and omg next fic I haven't even thought of what that would be!_ ) and then went back to his email to open the next comment.

 _From: Archive of Our Own_

 _To: Sirius Black_

 _[AO3] Comment on Get Low_

 _jilyx69 left the following comment on Get Low:_

 _Sooo smutty i loved it x_

 _Posted: 2017-01-08 08:46:33 -0400_

'Damn right you did, jilyx69,' Sirius muttered.

He clicked through the rest of the emails — all of which were complimentary and the few that edged towards critical ( _loved this — you should def think about a beta, though, to help with editing!_ ) he could easily ignore because, honestly, he'd been piss drunk when he wrote this, what the fuck were they expecting?

And, anyway, as Sirius' poor GCSE English teacher could tell you, he'd never been the best writer anyway.

Though, shows how wrong that guy was though, eh? These people thought he was brilliant.

* * *

It was the most viewed video on James' channel that month, that fanfiction video.

It had been fun, more fun than he'd expected, to sit down and read this silly little story about him and Lily Evans.

It was a little awkward at first — especially when James had had to DM Lily on Twitter and say, _hey, we've never met, but apparently people ship us and I wanted to read a fanfiction story on my channel and every single one that I found is about us, is that okay with you?_ — but he'd eventually gotten into the reading of the story and leant into the performative aspect of it.

It was fun, trying to do Lily's voice, imagining how she would respond in these situations knowing what little he did about her.

He watched her videos — she was, easily, the biggest YouTuber in the country, had been for a few years — so he knew (and liked) who she was on camera, but James knew well enough to the know that the person you are on YouTube is (usually) just an exaggerated version of the person that you really are. He knew that they had mutual friends, people that they'd both met through YouTube like the Prewett twins and Dorcas Meadowes, but, despite the fact that they'd both been at Summer in the City for the last few years and (as he'd found out afterwards) a number of the same promotional events, he hadn't yet met her in person.

He'd been surprised, when he'd started looking for fanfiction about himself, that people shipped him and Lily as much as it seemed like they did. The people who watched their videos had to know that they hadn't met — they knew every bloody thing about him and he was sure the same could be said for her followers — so he wasn't quite sure where this had started.

Maybe it was just because they were both popular British YouTubers, maybe it was because people thought they had compatible personalities, similar types of humour….

They weren't wrong on those last two, but honestly, he and Lily had never even met.

How could people ship them?

It was absurd.

* * *

It wasn't long before this whole fic writing thing got a little out of control.

Just a _little_ , mind, it wasn't like it was some huge thing.

So he'd written a few little stories. And maybe some people would say that twenty five was more than a few stories, but those people didn't know what they were talking about. Or they were just grossly overestimating the amount of work that he was having to put in, because, really, these were easy to write.

Sure, sometimes he spent a few hours trying to get something just right, but really. Not hard. He just wrote about stupid, silly little things that had either happened to James in real life (like the time he spilled a whole travel mug of tea on himself on the tube) or he made up stories that he thought people would like (like the story he wrote about James being one of Lily's fans and they meet in a pub and then they bone).

So, alright, it was a fair bit of work. And he'd taken to hiding in his office with his laptop all night trying to write shit, even when Remus was home, and then he'd had to splutter out excuses like, 'I'm just trying to see if there's a gay Ashley Madison' to throw Remus off the scent.

Remus hadn't been amused, but Sirius had thought it was pretty funny.

His biggest challenge to date, though, was this goddamn Titanic AU that jilydaydreams had asked him to write for her birthday. He'd been fighting with it all week — longer than he usually spent on things — because he couldn't remember the plot of the fucking Titanic (he could only remember the door bit and the "draw me like your French girls" bit) and then he'd sat down and watched the damn film and did you know that that fucking thing is over three hours long?

Remus had come home on Thursday night to find Sirius mid-watch (okay, mid-second watch), notebook on his lap, and little bits of popcorn strewn all over the cushions (and, alright, a few Ribena stains on his t shirt). And, after shouting at him about getting popcorn all over the place because 'I don't know why you insist on inhaling food like it's going to disappear, Sirius, you always end up making such a goddamn mess and then we have crumbs all in the sofa!', Remus started in on him for acting "bizarrely".

'Why in the fuck are you taking notes?' Remus dropped his school bag by the door. 'What would you even need them for?'

'Maybe I just want to do something romantic for you,' Sirius said, quickly shutting the notebook and stuffing it under his arm. 'Maybe I thought I'd pick up a few tricks from the most romantic movie of all time.'

Remus raised an eyebrow at him. 'Yeah, the bit where she lets him freeze to death in the water while she's chilling on the door is really romantic.'

Sirius snorted. 'The bit in the car, though. Sexy.'

Remus rolled his eyes and walked over to the couch. 'I guess. But we don't have a car, do we?'

'We could rent one.'

Sirius tipped his head back so he could hold Remus' gaze and Remus bent down, dropped a quick kiss onto his lips. 'I'm not having sex with you in a rented car.'

'Oh, and _I'm_ the posh one.'

Remus held his fingers up at him and Sirius laughed. 'You know what I mean, you prick.'

Remus started through the flat towards their bedroom and Sirius smacked the remote to stop the movie playing before he pushed himself up off the sofa and followed him.

'How was your day?'

Remus cast him a look over his shoulder as he pushed open their bedroom door. 'It was alright. Dustin was acting like a fucking twat again, but isn't he always?'

Remus sat down on the bed and starting untying his shoes. 'I hate that fucking kid,' Sirius said. 'I wish you would let me kick his arse.'

Remus laughed as he grabbed his shoes from the ground and walked over to put them neatly in his wardrobe. 'I wish you could, too, but I like my job. And it's not nice to go round beating up kids.'

'He's sixteen. He's an adult.'

Remus rolled his eyes. 'He is not.'

Sirius waved his hand. 'Whatever. But otherwise, good day?'

Remus shrugged. 'Yeah, good enough. Had _another_ staff meeting with our new fucking headmaster, but Minerva and I sat in the back and ignored him the whole time. So it wasn't the waste of time that it usually is.'

'My fiance, the rebel.'

Remus snorted. 'Hey, can I borrow your laptop? I realised on the tube that I left mine at school and I forgot I have to do some grading tonight.'

'Yeah, sure.' Sirius walked across the corridor into his office and grabbed the laptop off his desk. He tossed it onto the bed near Remus and Remus frowned at him.

'One day, you're going to break that and then I don't want to hear you whining about it.'

Sirius laughed. 'I won't break it.' Remus started shaking his head, but Sirius ignored him. 'What do you want for dinner?'

Remus slid up on the bed and rested his back against the headboard before he settled Sirius' laptop on his thighs. 'I don't know. What have we got?'

Sirius leant up against the door frame. 'I think we've got chicken. I know we have those noodles you like, so I could do a stir fry. Or I think I've still got some curry powder left if you want me to whip up a curry.'

Remus groaned and clutched at his stomach. 'A curry sounds fucking amazing.'

Sirius grinned. 'Curry it is.' Sirius saw Remus open the laptop out of the corner of his eye as he turned to walk back out into the kitchen when Remus screamed.

'WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!'

Oh no.

'Fuck!' Sirius shrieked, dove across the bed, and attempted to rip the laptop from a Remus' grasp, but Remus with his long, stupid arms, held it out of Sirius' grasp over the side of the bed.

'"Draw me like one of your French girls, James"?! "James bends Lily over the sofa and pushes his throbbing dick into her waiting hole"?! WHAT THE FUCK, SIRIUS?!'

'IT'S A JOKE! IT'S A JOKE!'

'What, writing porn about James!? Does he know you're doing this!?'

'No, Remus, obviously!'

'THEN HOW THE FUCK IS IT A JOKE?!'

'I — JUST GIVE ME MY LAPTOP.'

'No! I'm deleting this!'

'NO!'

Remus shot him an incredulous look. 'Why the fuck not?!'

'I promised my fans I'd post it tomorrow! I'll never finish if you delete it now.'

'YOUR FANS?!'

'Yes! I told jilydaydreams I'd have it up for her! It's her birthday!'

'I —' Remus pinched the bridge of his nose and took a slow, deep breath before he met Sirius' gaze again. 'How long have you been doing this?'

Sirius shrugged in a noncommittal sort of way and Remus crossed his arms. 'How. Long.'

'Since January,' Sirius muttered.

'JANUARY?!'

'You don't understand!'

'You're right,' Remus said, 'I don't understand! I don't understand why you would write,' he looked back at the computer and read, '"Lily moaned at the top of her lungs as James rubbed his fingers over her love button".'

Sirius barely contained the laugh that was threatening to burst out of him. 'It's called smut!'

'I DON'T CARE WHAT IT'S CALLED!' Remus said. 'He's your best friend! You're practically _brothers_!'

Sirius scoffed. 'It's not like I'm getting off to this!'

'Are other people?!'

'Well, I don't know, but I'm not about to pass judgment on —'

' _Sirius.'_

'I mean, probably, okay? Probably.'

'Jesus christ.' Remus ran a hand through his hair. 'Jesus fucking christ, Sirius.'

' _What_? What do you want me to do about it?'

'I _want_ you to delete all this insane fucking shit that you've written off the internet and then I never want to fucking talk about this again!'

Sirius shook his head. 'No.'

Remus raised his eyebrows incredulously. '"No"? What do you mean "no"?'

'I mean,' Sirius leant back on his hands, 'no, I'm not deleting my stories. People read them and they like them! And, frankly, I'm getting better at writing them.'

'Sirius fucking Black,' Remus scrolled back through the page he was looking at, 'you are not telling me that "James, who was as strong and beautiful as Adonis, through" spelled like _through_ a tunnel, "Lily down onto the bed" is a good fucking sentence.'

'In my defence,' Sirius said, 'I hadn't gotten to editing this story before you rudely snatched the laptop out of my hands.'

Remus looked incensed. 'YOU GAVE ME THE LAPTOP!'

Sirius waved his hand. 'Semantics.'

'No, Sirius, not semantics!'

'Whatever —'

'Don't "whatever" me! This is serious!'

Sirius smirked before he could stop himself. 'Isn't it always?'

' _Sirius_!'

Sirius threw up his hands. 'What?! What do you want me to do?'

'I've bloody well told you what I want you to do, haven't I?'

'Yeah, but I'm not going to do that.'

'Of course you aren't. Why would you stop writing _literal porn_ about someone you're basically related to?'

Sirius rolled his eyes. 'You are so dramatic —'

'I'M DRAMATIC?!'

'— it's not _all_ porn. I write meet cutes, too. The people just love my smut.'

'I — Sirius, I cannot,' Remus shook his head, his eyes wide with shock. 'I absolutely cannot.'

'Look,' Sirius shifted on the bed so he was sitting beside Remus, 'it's not as big a deal as you're making it out to be. And I _know,'_ he raised his voice because Remus had opened his mouth again and was _clearly_ about to say something rude, 'that's rich coming from me, but I'm telling you. I'm doing it for a laugh. That's it.'

'How, though? How is this a laugh?'

'It's just funny. Like, what if he found out?'

'Yeah,' Remus looked at Sirius like he was missing something. 'What _if_ he found out?'

Sirius waved his hand. 'He won't. He never reads the explicit ones. And I think he's still trying to scrub his brain of the ones we skimmed for that fic video he filmed in January, anyway.'

'I just — Sirius, I just don't see the logic here.'

Sirius laughed and patted Remus' thigh. 'My Remus. Always looking for logic.'

'I don't know why I bother with you,' Remus snapped.

Sirius grinned and leant forward to kiss the corner of Remus' mouth. 'Yes, you do.'

'Ugh,' Remus put his hand on Sirius' chest and pushed him upright. 'Don't do that. All I can think about is "James pushed his dick into her waiting hole".'

'See?' Sirius quirked an eyebrow at him. 'My writing sticks with you. I have a gift.'

'Do you now?'

Sirius nodded. 'Yup. All my commenters say so.'

Remus' expression suddenly shifted, became that shrewd, insightful one that Sirius avoided like the plague. 'You _like_ getting the comments, don't you? That's why you're still doing this.'

'What?'

'You heard me. You love getting compliments. Why else would you carry on writing this stuff?'

Sirius slid off the bed and started across the bedroom towards the door. 'What are you talking about? You're nuts.'

'Uh huh,' Remus muttered. He shifted so he was leaning up against the headboard again, swiped to one of Sirius' blank desktops, and opened up a new browser window. 'If this isn't about the comments, I'll eat my bloody hat.'

* * *

 _Excerpt from 'Angelic Bodies'_

 _By jilysanschilly on Archive of our Own_

 _Published: 2017-03-13_

 _Kudos: 157 Comments: 27 Hits: 295_

 _James pressed his tongue to Lily's hot, sticky pearl and wiggled it around. Lily gasped and gasped and GASPED until she started screaming underneath him._

' _I'm coming, James! I'm coming!'_

* * *

'It is painfully obvious that you have never fucked a woman in your life.'

Sirius crossed his arms and shot Remus an aggravated look. 'That's offensive. Do you have any idea how much research I did to write that?!'

Remus arched an eyebrow. 'Do tell.'

'I watched hours of straight porn. _Hours.'_ He wrinkled his nose. 'It was wretched.'

Remus sighed, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'I have so many things to say about that that I don't even know where to begin.'

'Look, okay, we don't have time for your lecture,' Sirius said. 'If you want this to be more "accurate" you have to help me.'

Remus shot him a look. 'Why do you think I'm any more of an expert?'

'I don't know, you're certainly fucking acting like one.'

'This —' Remus groaned. 'Sirius, it's just too weird. He's your best friend! He's practically your brother!'

'Look, Remus, don't make it weird. We aren't brothers. We've been over this — it's just for a laugh. It's not like I'm actually sitting here thinking about what the veins on his —'

Remus held up his hand. 'Okay. I'm going to need you to stop.'

Sirius huffed. 'Come onnnn. Don't you want to help me? Don't you want my people to have well-written jily fanfiction in their inbox tomorrow morning?'

'You don't have _people_ , Sirius.'

'First of all, that's offensive —'

Remus rolled his eyes. 'Look, if you have questions about grammar or something, I'll help you, but I'm not going to sit here and copy edit this for you.'

'Beta. It's called beta-ing.'

'Whatever. I'm not doing it.'

* * *

 _From: Remus Lupin (Google Docs)_

 _To: Sirius Black_

 _Checking Out on Aisle 5_

 _Remus Lupin added comments to Checking Out on Aisle 5_

 _New_

 _16 comments_

 _Comments_

" _I dont"_

 _Remus Lupin: Contraction_

" _your"_

 _Remus Lupin: You're (come on, Sirius, you know I hate this one)_

" _What do you think about my cukes?"_

 _Remus Lupin: Okay, look. I know you're trying to be clever, but that is the dumbest thing I've ever read_

" _I think your cukes are pretty groovy."_

 _Remus Lupin: GROOVY? ARE THEY FROM THE 70S NOW?_

" _What kind of biscuits you buying?"_

 _Remus Lupin: omg James and his biscuit obsession_

" _Jaffa cakes"_

 _Remus Lupin: YOU KNOW HOW JAMES FEELS ABOUT JAFFA CAKES AS BISCUITS ARE YOU DOING THIS TO HURT HIM_

" _catapult"_

 _Remus Lupin: ….. that makes no sense in this context_

" _Yeah you're so cute"_

 _Remus Lupin: That seems really out of character for him in this fic as you've written him. Like he might in real life, but he's been super reserved this whole fic? And actually I take that back, I don't even know that he'd say anything in real life either. I mean, it's James._

" _behind her"_

 _Remus Lupin: Following her around the store is creepy? IS THAT HOW HETS DATE?_

" _Yorkshire"_

 _Remus Lupin: You are really coming for James in this story aren't you_

 _Remus Lupin: I just thought about the words I typed and I'm throwing up_

" _sprouts"_

 _Remus Lupin: Wait how did we get here I'm confused_

" _I'm checking YOU out"_

 _Remus Lupin: Okay, two things: 1) capitalisation not necessary, that is what italics are for and, 2) how many shitty chat up lines are you going to make him use in this story_

" _the third till"_

 _Remus Lupin: where is aisle five? Your title promised me aisle five_

" _Maybe I could get your number?"_

 _Remus Lupin: I like that you had her ask instead of having James and his creepy cukes do it_

" _See ya later, Evans."_

 _Remus Lupin: god, he would call her by her last name, wouldn't he? He is the worst, why are we friends with him?_

* * *

 _WhatsApp Chat_

 _22 March 2017 14:03_

 _Sirius Black: arent you supposed to be teaching_

 _Sirius Black: how did you leave all those comments_

 _Sirius Black: and also how did you leave that many comments it's not even that long of a fic yet_

 _Remus Lupin: I had my free block and I figured I'd get it done so you would stop pestering me about it_

 _Sirius Black: I never pester_

 _Remus Lupin: ?_ _ﾟﾘﾂ_ _?_

 _Remus Lupin: To your question about comments, though - it needed that many comments. Trust me._

 _Sirius Black: that's hurtful_

 _Remus Lupin: Would you rather have a nice beta or an honest one?_

 _Sirius Black: are you really being honest if you aren't tellin gme it's 1000pc amazing though?_

 _Remus Lupin: ?_ _ﾟﾘﾂ_ _?_

 _Remus Lupin: Shit, kids are back_

 _Remus Lupin: See you at home. Love you xx_

 _Sirius Black: SIGHHHH_

 _Sirius Black: love you too xx_

* * *

Ever since he made that video, James' mentions had exploded.

And his manager was talking about how clever it had been for him to engage with fan-produced content like that, talking about how it really gave his community a _feel_ , but — and James kept trying to tell him this — that wasn't what he'd been going for in making the video.

Well, he liked the community bit, but talking about it like that made it seem kind of smarmy.

And he wasn't here for smarmy.

And he liked his manager, really he did, but then he'd started talking about how he was going to reach out to Lily's manager and maybe they could tip off one of the teen magazines that they were getting dinner together somewhere and maybe they could make this a _thing._

James was adamant that anything that might happen between them had to be totally organic. They hadn't even met, he and Lily hadn't, and he didn't want the first time they met to be some bizarre fake dating scenario just to excite their respective followers.

His manager was less than thrilled.

James quietly began searching for a new manager.

Come early April, most of the intense attention on his nonexistent relationship with Lily had died down, and thank god, because so many other parts of his life had fucking exploded. He was getting settled in with his new manager, Alice, and though James knew they were going to work well together, they were still in that early phase where they were figuring each other out and deciding how they worked best together. Still, early days or not, Alice had immediately opened up a whole new set of doors for him, and his schedule was busier than ever with meetings.

He had just gotten off the tube in Westminster one day for one such meeting when his mobile lit up with an Instagram notification.

 _INSTAGRAM_ _now_

 _(jamespotter): lilyevans: Hey! So I hope that you don't think that this is totally random (or that I'm trying to slide into your DMs or something even though I guess that's literally what I'm doing) but…._

James' heart started, inexplicably, hammering in his chest as he swiped on the notification and opened Instagram. He read the message at top speed and then, because he'd barely understood it the first time, started back up and read the full message again.

 _Hey! So I hope that you don't think that this is totally random (or that I'm trying to slide into your DMs or something even though I guess that's literally what I'm doing) but I feel like I just needed to reach out and say hi! I can't believe that we've never actually met before! I saw that you filmed that video you messaged me about on Twitter and I wanted to ask what you thought about getting together and filming another one? As a collab (w me obvs ?). No pressure - either way, let's get coffee or something soon! I feel like we need to be friends x_

He hadn't realised he'd come to a dead stop on the pavement until someone swerved around him, muttering under their breath about _these kids and their mobile phones._

He really — he looked up at the top of his screen to check the time — didn't have time to properly respond to this right now, but he knew that she knew that he'd seen her message, so he did the next best thing —

 _Hey! Im about to step into a meeting but yes we defo need to be friends. Call/text me tonight or whenever you get time 0207 946 0562 x_

He switched back to his email after he hit send, checked the instructions from Alice again about where he was supposed to be meeting this staffer. He'd just started down Parliament Street when his mobile lit up with another Instagram notification.

 _(jamespotter): lilyevans: Great! I'll text you ~1900? Good luck in your meeting! X_

James smiled to himself for the rest of the walk to Parliament.

* * *

 _Excerpt from 'The Moment Their Eyes Met'_

 _By jilysanschilly on Archive of our Own_

 _Published: 2017-04-19_

 _Kudos: 482 Comments: 53 Hits: 547_

' _I'll have a venti quad shot almond milk mocha with just two pumps of mocha please.'_

 _James carried on typing on his mobile, but then the barista cleared their throat loudly and he looked up._

 _And then, the moment their eyes met, James fell in love._

* * *

James stepped out of the Whitechapel tube station and checked Lily's text again.

 _11 Lindley Street. Little terraced house with the giant plants out front. Can't miss it x_

He walked a short way up Whitechapel Road, past the market outside the tube station, the hospital across the way, and a number of shops and small restaurants. He turned down Sidney Street and walked about a quarter mile before he turned onto Lindley. There were a few people milling about here — there was a lorry parked at the end of the road with its lights on, there was a woman pushing a pram on the opposite pavement — but it was much quieter here than it had been on the main road.

James didn't even have to guess which house was Lily's — he knew from the moment he'd rounded the corner. About halfway up the street, there was a house with a tree and some giant flowering shrub in the front garden.

He pulled his mobile out of his back pocket as he started up the street and opened WhatsApp.

 _I think im nearly there - youve got that giant flowering shrub out frotn?_

James was about to put his phone away, but she read his message immediately and began typing a reply.

 _That's me! I'll run down and meet you._

James couldn't help but smile to himself as he typed _see you soon!_ and stuffed his mobile back into his pocket.

Sure enough, Lily was waiting on the step outside her house when James arrived outside her gate. Her house was a nice-sized brick terrace house, with bright white windows and a black wrought iron fence along the front. The brick exterior was rough, definitely weather worn, and a few of the bricks along the edge had chipped away slightly at the corners. The gate opened up onto a patch of painted concrete, but Lily had set a number of large pot plants around the perimeter to liven up the space.

She positively beamed at him as he undid the latch on the gate and started up towards the house.

'Hi! I'm so happy to finally meet you!' She took two big, bounding steps down the stairs and held out her hand. James shook, his own smile stretching across his face.

'I'm so glad to meet you, too. It's only been, what, a few years of near misses?'

She laughed, 'God, I know, right?' before she turned and led him into her house.

He wasn't sure what to expect from the outside of the house — the contrast between the rough looking brick exterior and the bright, lively plants she'd clearly invested in made him unsure of what to expect inside — but the house was light, bright, and surprisingly airy. She'd painted the whole interior white and the light from the door into the back garden, directly opposite the front door down a long corridor, shown from the kitchen all the way up into the entryway.

She kicked off her house shoes under a small, narrow table across from the stairs to their right and smiled up at James as he followed suit.

'I'll go put the kettle on. You can make yourself comfortable.'

'Are you sure I can't help with something?'

Lily shook her head. 'Just tell me how you take it and what biscuits you like.'

'White with one. And gingernuts if you've got them. But I'll eat pretty much anything,' he added hastily, 'I'm not picky.'

Lily grinned. 'Well, you're in luck. Gingernuts are my favourite, too, so I've got loads.'

They walked down the corridor together, and Lily pointed him into her sitting room on the left. 'Make yourself comfortable.'

The sitting room, too, was painted a crisp white, but the space was saved from blandness by the line of colourful paintings overtop the soft grey sofa and the warm, deep wood of the furniture. The brick hearth on the opposite wall was as ragged as the brick exterior, and though he knew it was more because of age, the effect looked intentional in here. She had a few plants in here as well — there was another tree in the corner by the window and a few smaller plants dotted about on the bookshelves on the wall near the door that, otherwise, were crammed full of books. He could tell where she'd shifted books around to make room for the plants — she had some books stacked horizontally on top of the regular rows to make space — and though it might have looked cluttered, it just made the room look lived in, cosy. She had a basket of blankets beside the couch, too, another draped over the arm of the winged armchair in the corner by the fire, and he was in the middle of thinking about how lovely it had to be in here in the winter time when Lily walked in with the tea tray.

'I love all these blankets,' he said. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them and then he was kicking himself for sounding like a weirdo.

She grinned. 'Thanks. My Nan made most of them. And my mum did that one on the chair.' She nodded towards it as she set the tea tray down on the coffee table.

'Holy shit, really?'

She laughed. 'Really.'

They settled onto the couch and Lily handed James his mug and the packet of gingernuts. He accepted both with a smile and lifted out two biscuits before he handed the packet back to her.

Lily slid a half dozen of them into her palm and James bit back a smile as he leant back into the cushions.

'So, Whitechapel, eh? Why here and not, like, Kensington or something?' He tried to keep from smiling, but he couldn't quite help himself.

She snorted and said, 'Please,' but then she shrugged a little and there was something soft to her expression that James found endearing. 'I love Whitechapel. It's gritty here. Reminds me of home.'

He felt the corner of his mouth lift just a bit as he studied her. 'Liverpool, right?'

She nodded as she dunked one of her biscuits into her mug. 'I miss it. I could always go home, I guess, but I'm always so busy.'

'God, I know. And the minute you leave London, everyone freaks out. Like the world just completely stops once you leave town.'

'Right?! Like, maybe I want to go home and visit my mum and not have to think about social media for a few days. But god forbid you do that because then everyone thinks you got eaten by a pack of wild dogs or something.' She frowned. 'I didn't mean that how it sounded.'

James shook his head. 'No, no, I get it.'

'I just haven't been home in ages, is all,' she said. 'Or if I've gone home, I'm only there for an overnight or something, which is ridiculous because then I'm on the bloody train longer than I'm even home, but it's the only time I can ever really get away. I'd love to take a week, though. Shut off my phone and leave my computer and my camera here and just relax for once.'

'You should do that. It's not like the whole world'll actually come crashing down if you stop answering email for a few days.'

'God, doesn't it feel like it just might, though? I'm always worried that I'll shut off for a while and my follower base will collapse and then there goes my business and suddenly I'm homeless or something.' She breathed a laugh and dunked another biscuit. 'I'm sure that sounds ridiculous.'

He shook his head. 'No, I think about this a lot, too. Like this isn't a job that makes sense, really. And it isn't anything guaranteed. Not long term, anyway. It could literally crumble down around us at any moment.'

She laughed. 'What kind of idiots were we, then, doing this?'

James smiled at her. 'A question I ask myself every day.'

She laughed and dunked another biscuit into her tea. 'Anyway, I didn't mean for this to get so heavy. Let's talk about what you actually came all the way out here for.'

James snorted. 'I was coming from Southwark. Not so far. And, anyway, I don't mind the heavy chat. It's nice, talking to you.'

He wanted to say, probably should've said, that he felt like he already knew her. That watching her videos over the years had made her — her voice, her life, her thoughts — familiar to him in a way that, now, he was finding really comforting. He never minded being around others — he was a fairly extroverted person — but it did usually take him a little bit to settle into someone's company. To feel like he could turn off instead of having to be _on_ and _performing._

There was something soothing about her. Something that grounded him. It was nice.

And to be able to talk about work — he never really talked about work with anyone because almost nobody understood what it was that he was doing all day or just how much he worried about it all disappearing overnight. And he didn't want to sound ungrateful, didn't want to sound like he expected this to carry on being a career forever because he didn't. He knew that all of this was likely to change, knew that he was going to have to adapt as the market changed and the internet changed and the world changed. He'd already done that, adapted. He'd changed the kind of content he produced and somehow _grew_ his audience instead of alienating his followers, he'd opened up more and become more like himself which, though it had been terrifying at the time, had really worked for him. He sold merch and had a podcast and a website and had started a goddamn company, and he knew that all of these things were giving him the skills that he would need to move into almost anything else, but still, he couldn't help but worry about it all collapsing.

He worried about the entire decision making structure of his life changing. He worried about every single one of his many revenue streams running dry.

And he knew, really he knew, that he shouldn't be complaining, and he wasn't, but there was something about the uncertainty of it all that always had him a little on edge. That always made him a little anxious.

But the uncertainty also pushed him to create better content, to explore new ideas and get creative. The uncertainty was as much a driving force of his business as anything else was.

And it was nice, talking to someone who seemed to get that. It was nice talking to Lily because he didn't feel like he needed to explain in order to be understood.

She smiled softly at him. 'Thanks. I like talking to you, too.'

They sat there looking at one another for a moment before she cleared her throat. 'But anyway, I put out a recommendations request on Twitter, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat just before you got here,' Lily said. 'I thought people might have suggestions for good stories. Or at least things they want to see us read out.'

James nodded. 'As long as we don't read anything that'll get us demonetised, I'm up to read anything.'

Lily sent him a wide smile. 'Exactly what I was hoping you'd say.'

They spent the next hour on Lily's couch drinking tea and scrolling through Archive of our Own (and eating an ungodly amount of biscuits). They set their filters — after, of course, Lily had found a _very_ explicit fic about the two of them being bumbling virgins and she'd made a point to read out the surprisingly filthy description — to include only "Teen" and "General" stories and started batting options back and forth.

'So,' Lily was biting the edge of her lip as she scrolled, 'it looks like this one author keeps coming up a lot? Jilysanschilly? I went to their profile and it looks like _most_ of what they've written is explicit, but I found a few tamer fics I thought might be worth a go.'

James scrolled back up to the top of the page and typed in the author's username into the search bar to bring up their account. They'd written loads of stories, but they seemed, if their numbers were anything to go by (not that he had a gauge against which to read these), pretty popular.

Lily was right, though — of their thirty five stories, twenty of them were marked explicit.

'Oh my god,' James looked over at her. 'They wrote us into the Titanic.'

Lily gasped. 'What?! Really?! I didn't see that one!'

She was quiet for a moment as she scrolled and then she burst out laughing. '"Will James and Lily get off the boat or will they be BRUTALLY MURDERED by a piece of fucking ice?!" Who is this person, I want to be their best friend.'

'They really do love using all caps,' James said. 'My brother Sirius would love them. He's always putting caps in fucking everything.'

Lily looked up at him and grinned. 'A man after my own heart, that Sirius.'

James rolled his eyes and Lily's smile widened. 'I've seen him in your videos. He's a gift. And Remus too, like — I know he isn't in your videos that often, but he's absolutely fucking hilarious.'

'Oh, he is. We'll all have to hang out sometime because he is even better in person.'

'I'm glad you invited me,' Lily said, smiling to herself as she looked back at her screen and resumed scrolling, 'because I was definitely going to invite myself if you didn't.'

'Or you could've DMed them on Insta and demanded they be your friend.'

Lily snorted and held her fingers up at him. 'Oh, piss off. You're so happy I did that.'

He grinned, half shrugged. 'Still gotta take the piss about it though, haven't I?'

She nudged him with her elbow. 'Get back to scrolling.'

They spent another twenty minutes or so reading through descriptions and then skimming through their finalists before they finally picked a story, a "coffee shop AU" called "The Moment Their Eyes Met". The title was so cheesy, Lily said, too perfect to ignore, and she'd been a barista for a while in school and thought that she would 'bring a certain authenticity to the role'.

James thought he seemed a little too posh in this particular story, but Lily had said she 'didn't have the slightest idea what he was on about because he seemed to be written perfectly'.

He nudged her elbow with his as they started upstairs towards her filming room, but that just set her laughing.

Lily led them to the far room at the back of the house when they got upstairs. 'This,' she said as she pushed open the door, 'is my filming room. It's not massive, but it's got a decent window and with the screen lights, we can usually get it pretty bright in here. When the sun cooperates, I don't even need the lights.'

He could see what she was talking about. The sun was, for once, out in full force today and the space was almost shockingly bright.

'It is kind of small in here though. I know we can fit the chairs in the shot, but if we wanted to be moving around and stuff, we'd have to come up with something else.'

James nodded slowly. 'Did you want to be moving around a little more?'

'Well — and okay, hear me out — I thought that because we're going to do a coffee shop AU that we could like… act it out.'

James raised his eyebrows. 'Act it out.'

She nodded. 'Yeah. You know, instead of sitting in these chairs,' she indicated the grey, plush chairs in front of her camera setup, 'we could really give it some life.'

'Okay… and how would you propose we go about that?'

* * *

A few hours later, they were standing in the middle of The Mighty Roast, a small coffee shop just up the road from Lily's place. Her friend, Benjy, apparently owned the place and, as it closed in the early afternoon, he didn't mind them coming and monopolising his closing staff for a bit (especially because it meant a fair bit of free advertising).

They'd copied the story out into a Word document and James had set to work editing the prose down into something that more closely resembled a script. He hadn't read anything too closely, had just read enough to pop in some kind of stage direction and to make sure that he didn't accidentally cut out some dialogue, but, now that he was standing in the middle of a coffee shop and preparing to act out a fictional version of himself, he wished he'd given himself a little more time to prepare.

But they weren't making themselves memorise anything — Lily had told him a few times because he kept looking anxious about having the script in his hand while they were on camera.

'Just read a few lines ahead and try to memorise in bursts,' she said. 'It'll be fine. You've done scripted videos before, haven't you?'

He nodded. 'I usually have my little scrolling teleprompter thing though.'

She grinned. 'Well, this is basically a low-tech teleprompter. You'll be fine.'

James was leaning up against the counter skimming his first few lines, though, when something caught his eye.

'Huh.'

Lily looked up — she'd been directing her assistant, Catalina, on the filming set up and talking her through how they wanted to stage the first few shots — and raised her eyebrow at him. 'What?'

'It's just — this fic! A "venti quad shot almond milk mocha with just two pumps of mocha" is my actual coffee order. How the fuck did they know that?!'

Lily smirked. ' _That_ is your actual coffee order?'

James frowned. 'Don't judge me.'

Lily's smile widened. 'Too late.'

James huffed. 'Don't you think it's weird though? How did they know that this is what I get?'

'You must have talked about it at some point. Or maybe you ordered on a vlog at once.'

James frowned. 'Maybe.'

Try as he might, though, he couldn't remember a single time that he would have ordered a coffee on camera. He was really against the idea of carrying a camera into a coffee shop and talking into it while he was interacting with someone (he didn't even like being on the _phone_ when he was ordering something), so he knew that he couldn't have been caught ordering by accident.

It was possible, of course, that this person had maybe heard him order before — maybe they'd taken his order or they'd been there when he was ordering and just happened to overhear — but still… something didn't feel right about it. It was a lot of ingredients to remember, something that Sirius reminded him of constantly whenever they went out to get coffee together, and so it just didn't seem likely that someone would have completely memorised his order only to use it in a fanfiction.

Confused or not, though, he was determined to brush it off.

Luckily, the rest of the afternoon afforded James little chance to mull over the mystery. He and Lily had an amazing time, an even more amazing time than he could've hoped. Part of it was the content of the video itself — the story was hilarious, even if accidentally so — but most of it was just… Lily.

It was the way she delivered her lines and the way she would wiggle her eyebrows at him whenever she was chatting him up. She'd taken this absurd thing and really leant into it, and he couldn't help but admire that.

He was positive that most everyone else — Benjy's poor closing staff who were hanging around and playing extras and Catalina who was responsible for filming their stupid arses — got tired of having to reshoot scenes because James and Lily couldn't stop bloody laughing, but James couldn't remember ever having a better time.

They hadn't even watched back any of the raw footage yet, but he could already tell that this video was going to be absolutely amazing.

'How are we going to figure out which channel to put it on?' Lily asked as they were stepping out of the coffee shop early that evening. The sun was just starting to go down and the light was a soft, warm gold.

James smiled down at her and tried not to become too distracted by the way Lily's hair shown deep red in the glow.

He half shrugged. 'We could always fight for it.'

She raised an eyebrow at him. 'Only if you're prepared to lose.'

He grinned. 'Maybe we could cut it halfway or something. Though, really, I'm happy to just put the whole thing on your channel.'

'Really? What would we do for yours?'

They stopped at a junction and James scuffed the toe of his shoe against the pavement while they waited for the signal to change.

'We could do a Q&A or something. Or an "Answering our Followers" questions thing.'

She nodded, but then her eyes went wide and she grabbed his elbow. 'We could do the girlfriend or boyfriend tag in character.'

James' jaw dropped. 'Oh. My. God. You're a fucking genius.'

Lily tipped her shoulder at him and gave him a very satisfied smile. 'Aren't I just?'

He knew she was teasing him, but he nodded fervently. 'You really are. That's perfect.'

She beamed. 'So when did you want to film that? It's — I mean, I don't know if you have plans tonight or —'

He shook his head. 'No plans. I rarely have evening plans these days.'

Lily raised a teasing eyebrow at him as they turned onto Lindley Street. 'Too important for YouTuber events?'

He snorted. 'God, no. I still love swag as much as the next person. I've just been so damn tired and I had to pull back somewhere.'

She unlocked her gate and looked over her shoulder at him as she started up towards her door. 'Oh yeah? Are you working on anything or is it general life tiredness?'

He laughed and fastened the gate behind them. 'Both. Always both.'

'Anything you can tell me about?' She waggled her eyebrows at him like she had during filming and he immediately started laughing again.

'I'm technically not supposed to share, but I mean — if we're talking as _friends_ —'

'We're definitely talking as friends.'

He grinned at the eagerness in her tone. 'Well, then I guess I could share a _little_.'

They kicked their shoes off under the entry table and James followed her down the corridor into the kitchen. Lily grabbed the kettle off the base in the corner and looked at him expectantly as she started filling it.

'Well?'

He laughed and grabbed two mugs off the mug tree in the corner and set them in the centre of the island. 'Well, I want to preface all this by saying that it hasn't been in the works for very long —'

'And nothing is confirmed or final, et cetera et cetera,' Lily said, waving her hand. 'I got you.'

He nodded. 'Right. But so, you know that my parents are part of Windrush?'

She nodded and popped the kettle onto the base before she grabbed two tea bags from the box beside and pitched them into the mugs James had got down. 'I loved that video you did about them. It was amazing.'

He smiled. 'Cheers. But yeah, so, my new manager's husband works in Parliament and so she has a lot of connections with MPs, so I've just started interviewing some and pulling together material to do a little Brexit series.'

James leant back against the counter and Lily mimicked him. 'Shit, really? That's — James, that's amazing. Do you see this growing into a larger series or?'

James nodded. 'You know how Tyler Oakley does that series on queer experience and identity? Ideally it'd be like that but about immigrant experience and the experience of being a person of colour in the UK. And it would probably end up being more political than Tyler's. I'm starting with Brexit because it's the most… immediate feeling? Also I couldn't turn down the chance to get those meetings on the books.'

Lily shook her head. 'Yeah, no, I can't imagine you could. Seriously, James, that's amazing. I can't wait to see these videos.'

He grinned. 'Thanks. But what about you? You're always working on really cool stuff.'

'Well —'

The kettle clicked off and Lily fell silent as she turned to pour water into each of their mugs. They let them steep for a minute — James grabbed the milk from the fridge and sloshed a bit into each of their mugs and Lily dumped a spoonful of sugar into his cup — before they settled into the stools at her island.

He turned in his seat to face her. 'So what were you going to say earlier?'

'Oh,' she was midway through a sip of tea. 'Well, obviously, the same rules apply.'

'Nothing's confirmed, keep my mouth shut of you're going to kill me, et cetera et cetera?'

She breathed a laugh and nodded. 'I'm getting ready to announce a new podcast. I've spent the last six months interviewing all these people and I finally have enough content banked that I feel like we can start moving ahead with it.'

'That's brilliant. What kind of podcast?'

'It's a collection of things. It's mostly interviews on a variety of topics, but we're also building in space in the schedule to record more topical episodes as the need arises. Our tagline is "A Curious Podcast for Curious People", so I think that should give you some kind of idea.'

James hummed through a sip of tea. 'Do you know when it'll go live?'

She shook her head. 'We're still a little ways out, I think. Maybe a few weeks? We've got iTunes and SoundCloud, but we've been having a bit of back and forth with Spotify. I think we're just going to move ahead without them and if they get on board, they get on board, but _fuck,_ have they held things up.'

James groaned. 'I'm sorry. That's such a pain in arse.'

'Isn't it, though? And I feel obnoxious going to them and being like, "Excuse me, I have twelve million subscribers, please include my podcast on your platform", but also like. Excuse me, please include my podcast on your platform.'

'Well, I'm sure it'll get sorted. Once it's successful everywhere else, they'll be clambouring for it, won't they?'

She sighed. 'I hope so. I mean, I think the iTunes and SoundCloud markets are big enough that we don't necessarily need it, but you know how it is. Diversify your content distribution streams as much possible, blah, blah, blah.'

James snorted. 'If I had a penny for every time I'd heard that.'

Lily chuckled. 'Right?'

They spent the next half an hour at her counter, drinking their tea and bantering back and forth about one thing or another, before they finally trudged upstairs to her filming room to record the video they were planning on doing for his channel. It had taken them a moment to get back into character — Lily had even run downstairs and grabbed her pinny from the kitchen because it helped her feel "more like herself" — and between that and all the laughing they'd done trying to get through it, it took them another few hours to film.

All told, it was well gone eleven by the time James called a car to take him home. Lily sat on the stairs and smiled at him as he slid his shoes on.

'I know I said this a million times, but I think we got some really great stuff today.'

He leant up against the wall, careful not to knock his hip into her table, and grinned. 'We absolutely did. We work really well together, I think.'

She nodded. 'It didn't even feel like work. We should film together more often.'

'Our assistants might kill us, but —'

'Worth it.'

James laughed. 'Exactly.'

She smiled softly at him before she breathed a quiet laugh and looked down at her knees. James watched as a few strands of hair slipped over her shoulders and fell down to hide her face.

'What's funny?'

She looked up at him then, and he wasn't sure what it was — the look in her eyes, maybe — but it suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe.

'I just feel like we're in that fanfiction we read,' she said. 'That's all.'

He wanted to ask her "which bit?", wanted to know what it was, exactly, about this moment that was reminding her. Because he, maybe, felt similarly and he knew exactly which bit this felt like.

He wanted to ask her — _which bit_ — but he couldn't think straight. Couldn't work up the courage. It was right there, but still, he couldn't —

His mobile pinged and he looked away to check the screen.

He cleared his throat before he looked up and caught her eye again. 'Car's here.'

Lily said nothing as she stood and James opened the front door. Lily slipped on her house shoes and they stepped out onto the front porch. Sure enough, the small, white Prius James had been waiting for was idling in the street.

James turned to her and smiled despite the odd sinking sensation in his stomach. It was subtle, nothing too intense, but still — he didn't want to go.

'Thanks for having me,' he said. 'I'm sorry I was here the whole bloody day.'

It wasn't at all when he'd wanted to say, but the moment had passed, hadn't it?

She chuckled and shook her head. 'Nonsense. I loved hanging out with you. And anyway,' her smile got just a touch wider, 'I knew from the moment our eyes met that we'd get on.'

He grinned. 'Cheers, Evans.'

She bit her lip in a wasted effort to contain her smile and shook her head at him. 'Get out of here before your driver leaves.'

'Alright, alright.' He turned and stepped down off the porch. He was halfway to the gate when Lily shouted, 'Hey!' and he turned.

'Text me when you get home. And I'll upload the footage to Dropbox tonight, so let me know if you don't have access.'

He smiled. 'Okay. And I'll upload the video once it's edited and we can exchange notes.'

She nodded and said, 'Okay, cool,' and he thought that she might turn and walk back inside, but she was hovering on the stair with this look on her face like she was trying to decide something.

James raised an eyebrow at her, though he was sure she couldn't see it in the dark even with the light from the lamp outside her door. 'What?'

She reached up and began turned the pendant on her necklace over in her fingers. 'I — uh — do you hug? As a general rule?'

He frowned. 'What?'

'I — Do you mind if I hug you goodbye? Or not. I mean obviously whatever is — is fine.'

'Oh,' James reached up and brushed his hair back off his forehead. 'No, no, not at all. I, uh — hugs are great.'

Lily stepped down onto the pavement and James stepped forward to meet her. There was a moment, a brief moment, of confusion about how to put their arms — were they going to go one around the waist and one around the shoulders, were they going to go up and down and if they both went, how were they going to decide the sides — but they got there in the end.

And by 'got there', he of course meant that Lily tired of them awkwardly shifting their arms in the air, laughed, and just stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist.

It was quick, brief, but she smelled so good and his skin was warm everywhere she was touching him and his heart was in his throat and he couldn't fucking breathe —

And then she pulled back and smiled at him and then he _really_ couldn't breathe.

'I don't know why I was trying to reach up around your shoulder,' she said. 'You're way too bloody tall.'

James laughed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. 'Sorry. I drank a lot of milk growing up.'

She laughed. 'What?'

'I — I don't know, my mum always said — nevermind.'

She shook her head, still laughing, and reached out to pat his elbow. 'Go home. Get some sleep.'

He'd forgotten about the poor driver sitting there.

'I'll text you when I get home,' he said, taking a step back towards the gate. Lily nodded.

'Good. I'll see ya later.'

James grinned and said, 'See ya later,' before turned on his heel and started towards the gate.

James apologised profusely to the driver when he finally got into the car (he, on the whole, didn't seem interested in James' apology), before he turned and looked out the car window as he settled into his seat. Lily was still standing on the porch, her arms crossed as she leaned up against the frame of her front door. She raised her hand and, though James knew she couldn't see him, he waved back.

She stood there until the car pulled away. The minute her house was out of sight, James leant his head back against the headrest.

Because he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was well and truly fucked.

* * *

 _Excerpt from: Love Under Cover(s)_

 _By jilysanschilly on Archive of our Own_

 _Published: 2017-04-21_

 _Kudos: 781 Comments: 86 Hits: 1649_

 _James whipped his hair sexily and glared at Lily. 'Why didn't you tell me you were a spy?!'_

 _Lily dropped her gun on the counter and sashayed across the kitchen. She started tracing her fingers up his forearms and James started breathing like he couldn't figure out how he was supposed to do it._

' _Now, James,' Lily brushed her hips against his, 'why would I ruin the element of surprise?'_

* * *

James managed to forget, in the sweep of emotion that rolled over him over the next few days, all about the coffee order mystery.

Because he and Lily had taken to talking pretty much every day — his "I'm home" text that first night had turned into an hour long text conversation about the reruns of _Friends_ that they'd both ended up watching on telly and then she'd texted him on Sunday and asked if he wanted to go the pub. They texted on and off throughout the week, too, though they were much quieter now that the work week had started and they had a full schedule of meetings and deadlines again.

It surprised him, how quickly he and Lily fell into this friendship of theirs, though it probably shouldn't have done. They got on well, really well. And, sure, sometimes he wondered if there might be the possibility of something more between them, but he was just happy to have her around. Happy to hear her laugh and talk with her about work and life and whatever else.

No, James was too busy being swept up in the newness of all these feelings that he didn't remember at all until the next Thursday when he met Lily for a coffee in Westminster and she'd laughed when he placed his usual order.

'I never would've thought you'd be high maintenance about your coffee,' she'd said. James had laughed and said something stupid ('Well, I'm a man of neverending mystery, Evans') that had just set her laughing again, but this time, he made a note for himself in his note app so he wouldn't forget —

 _Jilysanschilly coffee mystery_

* * *

When James got home that evening, a silly little smile still on his face after another good afternoon with Lily, he immediately made himself a cup of tea, grabbed a packet of biscuits from the cupboard, and trudged down the corridor to his office. He drew the blinds halfway before he settled into his chair — he loved that his flat had full walls of windows along the exterior, but god _damn_ did it get annoying when the sun was up and he was trying to work at his desk. He knew that he should probably just reorganise his office furniture so that he didn't have to shut the blinds every time he wanted to work in here during the day, but he quite liked the set up and so, honestly, he'd just rather complain about the sun than actually do anything about it.

His email client immediately started pinging with emails when he opened his laptop, but he closed the app so that he wouldn't let himself get distracted by the million things he had sitting in his inbox. And then, even though it mildly pained him to do it, he clicked in the upper right corner to shut off his notifications before he opened his browser and went to Archive of our Own.

He typed jilysanschilly into the search bar and clicked on their username in the first story that popped up (incidentally, the coffee shop story that he and Lily had read out last week). This person had written another story since James had been on their account, bringing their total up to thirty six. This new story, "Love Under Cover(s)", was marked explicit, and though James had half a mind to scroll back and start somewhere, anywhere, else, he knew that going through the stories methodically was probably the best way to go about this and he didn't want to miss anything because he couldn't remember what he'd read and what he hadn't.

And anyway, he was bound to get to the explicit stuff at some point. He might as well start with the worst of it.

It was, as he expected from a story that called itself a "Mr and Mrs Smith AU but SEXIER", just about as bad as he thought it might be, but, luckily (or perhaps unluckily if he was going to be subjecting himself to this), it didn't seem like there was anything in this particular story that was suspicious.

As he carried on reading, though, things definitely started to stand out. There were some details about his mannerisms that he thought seemed pretty bang on, but anyone probably could've picked those up from watching his videos. And it was a _little_ strange that his character talked about wearing his lucky dress socks, but, again, that was something he probably mentioned in passing at some point when he was getting ready for something or another on the vlog.

Things got weirder, though, when he realised that the flat they sometimes described was eerily similar to his own.

And maybe someone could've watched all his vlogs and used that to sketch a floor plan, but that was starting to feel a little too generous. Who would put in that amount of work?

But if it wasn't someone he didn't know, if it wasn't someone just watching his videos, then it had to be someone he knew. And it had to be someone he knew well enough to have over his place and probably more than once because who, reasonably, saw a whole flat in one visit and never came back?

And when he started thinking along those lines, a lot of the other details started to make sense. Someone who knew him _would_ know his coffee order and the layout of his flat. They would know for a fact that his childhood bedroom had had Millwall posters all over the walls, would know, as his character said in the story where James coached kids football, that "all he'd wanted to be as a kid was to be a striker worth half of Cascarino or Sheringham". They would know that James' favourite mug was one his mum had got him that said 'QUEEN.' in big, bold letters, and that he loved it precisely because his mum had ordered it by mistake and then decided that she couldn't be arsed to order another and so she gave it to him anyway.

The person who wrote these stories, if they knew him, would have been able to work in all of these little details about him, things that he might have forgotten mentioning on the internet at some point or things that his more… _dedicated_ followers could have sussed out for themselves, but that most people, probably, wouldn't have known. It was why his character in these stories felt so much more accurate, why he found himself thinking 'holy shit, I would say that' so often when he'd been reading through these stories.

And then James found the final piece of the whole fucked up puzzle.

In the middle of this person's story where James owned a bookshop in Newcastle (a place James has literally never even _been_ ), his character was reaching up onto a high shelf to get a book for Lily and, in the middle of her very confusing swooning over the skin of his lower back, she asked him about a mark that she noticed just underneath the hem of his t-shirt.

James' character then insisted on lifting up his shirt and revealing this small but brutal looking scar in the centre of his back and then he proceeded to tell her that he'd gotten it as a kid when he was jumping over a fence after playing an, admittedly, ill-advised game in his neighbour's back garden.

"I snagged my back on a loose wire," James' character said, "but we were still running from Ol' Al because, literally, he was _completely_ mad and racist as hell and probably would have marched us right up to the fucking Tower of London and demand they start taking prisoners again."

And then, and this was the kicker for James, actual James — his character said, "We never told my mum about how I got it, though, because she would have gone to Al's house and murdered him. I think we just said that I fell backwards onto a stray bit of glass in the road."

And there was only one person — only one person in the entire fucking _world_ — who could know that.

* * *

 _WhatsApp Chat_

 _25 April 2017 21:02_

 _James Potter: hey what are you doing right now_

 _Sirius Black: lounging around naked with Remus_

 _Sirius Black: oh excuse apparently I wasnt supposed to tell you that_

 _Sirius Black: so """"nothing"""" I guess_

 _Sirius Black: why?_

 _James Potter: haha tell REmus I say hi_

 _James Potter: wanted to ask if I could pop by for a mo_

 _James Potter: when you both have trousers on of course_

 _Sirius Black: of course mate any time_

 _Sirius Black: everything good?_

 _James Potter: I'll be there in twenty_

* * *

James probably should have warned him. Sirius. Probably should have warned him that he was coming over with print outs of all these fucking stories he'd written — because, hey, Sirius wasn't the only one with a flare for the dramatic — but James knew exactly what would happen if he'd tried to give Sirius any sort of advanced warning about what was coming his way.

He and Remus would be "busy" or he'd suddenly remember that, oh god, they don't have any milk and Remus really hates the M&S near their flat and he always makes him go all the way to that Tesco near Tower Bridge, and you _know_ how Remus gets if he doesn't have any milk for his tea in the morning, James, and we can't send him to school like that, he has the future of Britain's children in his hands.

No, James was absolutely not going to warn him.

Instead, he was going to use the walk to convince himself that it wasn't a good idea to walk into Sirius and Remus' flat and throw the papers everywhere and just immediately start screaming.

He was going to use this walk to breathe.

Because he was a mature adult and mature adults did not handle their problems by aggressively shouting at one another.

Despite his best efforts, though, James wasn't any calmer when he reached their flat twenty minutes later. He used his key to open the door downstairs and trudged up the stairs to their second floor flat, and he tried, you know, to do what his mum always told him to do, tried to take a moment, take a breath, when he was outside their door, but James didn't fucking have time for moments and breaths.

He knocked on their flat door and was surprised by how civilised it sounded.

He could hear someone coming up the corridor and he hoped, foolishly, that it would be Sirius who opened the door.

He didn't even try to smile when Remus opened the door.

'Hey.' Remus' eyebrows immediately creased with concern. 'You alright?'

James spotted Sirius on the couch past Remus' shoulder, so, instead of answering, he handed Remus the packet of papers in his hand and slid past him into the flat.

'Sirius!'

'Hey, mate —' Sirius' brow, too, immediately furrowed. 'What's up?'

'Oh, not much, you know.' James shrugged casually, a gesture that was sharply contrasted with his hard, angry tone. 'Just a long afternoon of drawing Lily like one of my French girls and rubbing love buttons!'

Sirius burst out laughing, seemingly in spite of himself, but sobered almost immediately. 'What — James, what —'

'No,' James shook his head. 'Don't "what" me. You know bloody well what, Sirius. What the fuck?!'

Sirius crossed his arms. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'God damn it, Sirius. God damn it! Are you — Remus!' James whirled around and found Remus, frozen behind him. James held out his hand and Remus, interpreting the gesture correctly, wordlessly handed him the stack of stories.

James flicked through the papers — Remus has rearranged them as he'd been reading — and, finally finding the page he was looking for, cleared his throat.

'"James didn't have a lot of money and so it didn't really make sense that he'd ended up on the Titanic. But he and his friend beat some blokes in poker and they won tickets! James was so excited to be leaving Britain, to be going home to New York, and to think — the adventure hadn't even started yet."' He'd been reading in a fun, almost singsong sort of voice, but when he looked up and caught Sirius' eye again, his tone was immediately livid again.

'Ring any fucking bells, Sirius?!'

Sirius sort of shook his head and half shrugged. 'Sounds like someone wrote you into the plot of the _Titanic._ Bully on you, though, sounds like you're Jack.'

'S — _someone_. Someone?! Sirius, I swear to god —'

'Okay.' Remus stepped around James and held his hands up. 'James, why don't you, instead of playing this guessing game —'

'This isn't a _game_ , Remus!'

' — why don't you just come out with it and tell Sirius what you're upset about.'

'Alright,' James turned to look at Sirius again. 'Alright, fine. You want to know what I'm pissed off about, Sirius? I'm pissed off because you are writing fucking _fanfiction_ about me and most of it is fucking _erotic_ and then I come here to try and talk to you about it and you're pretending you don't know what the fuck I'm talking about!

'And — _and —_ ' He raised his voice because Sirius had opened his mouth and he wasn't done. 'You wrote about Lily, who you've never met, and you wrote her into fucking porn without asking! Doesn't that strike you as some kind of violation?!'

Sirius raised his hands. 'Okay, well, look, in my defence —'

James scoffed. 'There's no defending it, Sirius!'

' _In my defence_ , I was only doing it for a laugh.'

'A laugh.' He was going to kill him, he was really going to kill him. 'A FUCKING LAUGH?!'

'Yeah,' Sirius stood and tried to strike a casual pose, but James could see the tension in his shoulders. 'I never thought you'd be this upset.'

'What did you expect?! That I'd just find out you were writing porn about me and I'd laugh it off like "oh ho, that's my ol pal Sirius, he doesn't mean any harm"?!'

'Well,' Sirius laughed easily, 'yeah.'

James fisted a hand in his hair.'What the _fuck_ is wrong with you that you think that's how I'd react?!'

'You never used to be this fucking uptight, how the hell was I supposed to know?!'

'Oh, so I'm uptight now? It's _uptight_ not to want someone writing PORN about you without fucking asking?!'

'Look,' Remus cleared his throat and James and Sirius both whipped around at the interruption. 'I'll just leave you two to —' Remus waved his hand vaguely. 'Sort this.'

Sirius looked incensed. 'You're just going to leave me here?!'

Remus nodded. 'Yeah. I fucking told you he'd be angry, Sirius, I don't —'

James' jaw dropped. 'YOU KNEW?!'

Remus swore and James glared at them both in turn. 'So you BOTH knew? That's —' He pointed at Remus. 'YOU'RE WHY IT GETS BETTER.'

'Hey!' Sirius crossed his arms. 'Excuse me, I got better on my own.'

'This is unbelievable.' James fisted his hands in his hair and started pacing short, sharp lines across the lounge. 'Absolutely fucking unbelievable. My best friends — unfuckingbelievable.'

'Look, mate —' Remus started, but James held up his hand.

'I — I can't. I can't. I've got to go.'

'Oh, James, come on —'

'No, no —' James shook his head. 'I just — I'm not going to say anything really nice or helpful right now so I just — I'll text you both later, okay, because I can't do this right now.'

Neither of them tried to stop him as he turned and walked back out the front door.

* * *

He had to tell her.

He had to to tell her, right?

She deserved to know. She deserved to know that she was spending time with someone who was best friends with a pair of raving fucking nutters.

And anyway, he couldn't just keep seeing her and then she finds out. That would lead to some kind of tragedy that he was sure their friendship or relationship or whatever this was wouldn't survive.

 _Mental note: talk to Lily about what this is_

But anyway, he had to tell her.

Sure, he hadn't really talked to Sirius and Remus yet, was still coming to terms with all this shit himself, but it didn't feel right to hold onto it, this information. He wasn't sure what it was going to change, telling Lily about this — if anything it would fuck up more things than it would fix — but it didn't feel right not to tell her.

He was going to tell her.

Though maybe he could've been a bit more nuanced about it.

* * *

'Sirius has been writing porn about us!'

They'd just sat down at a table in the back corner of Mighty Roast and James blurted it out before Lily could resume the conversation they'd been having on the walk to the cafe.

He'd loved talking about their old Bake Off faves, but honestly, this couldn't wait. He'd barely restrained himself as it was, from shouting it the moment she opened her door, to saying it any number of times on the walk — the only reason he'd kept it together this long was because the thought this would be a conversation best had sitting down but _then_ he was kicking himself because maybe, more than sitting down, this was a conversation best had in private.

He only hoped they could get back to talking about how amazing Nadiya was. That she wouldn't immediately ask him to leave and never talk to her again.

Lily just stared at him.

James, never able to help himself, ploughed on.

'You know that story we read? Jilysanschilly? That's him. And Remus, he fucking edited the things. Eventually, I mean, not at first, but definitely later, so it was the bloody pair of them. I — he said he was only doing it for a laugh, Sirius, and, honestly, that is just the kind of stupid thing he would do, but he also wrote all that porn and I just — I mean, I would never want you to think that — I didn't ask him to write it, I didn't even know until the other day when I figured it out and then I went over to his and we had this huge row about it and I still don't really even understand why he did it except that he's an idiot and I just — I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

He was panting, fucking panting, by the time he finished speaking because he hadn't paused long enough to actually take a breath. The sound of his own breathing was so damn loud in his own ears, louder because Lily was sitting there across from him in stunned silence.

He couldn't tell what she was thinking — she was just sitting there, slowly lowering her coffee (because, of course, she'd been taking a drink when he'd started and why hadn't he waited because what if he'd shocked her and then she'd choked to death on that damn cappuccino) back down to the table.

And, alright, maybe it had only been like half a second since he'd stopped talking, but it felt like a million goddamn years and he was _freaking out_ because he knew, he _knew_ that she was going to get up and leave and maybe she'd dump her coffee in his lap for good measure.

But then, mercifully — unless this was completely the opposite of what he thought it was — she laughed.

'What do you have to be sorry for?'

That… wasn't what he expected.

'I — he — I mean, he's my brother. And my best friend.'

She shook her head. 'So? You didn't sit them down at the computer and demand they write weird porn about us, did you?'

James blanched. 'God no!'

She laughed again and took another sip of her cappuccino. 'Okay, then.'

James watched her, his hands turning his mug in slow, unsteady circles. 'I thought you'd be angry.'

'It's no use being angry at you, though, is it?'

'I — I mean, I don't know.'

'Would you be cross with me if it were my friends writing porn about us?'

'I — no.' James shook his head. 'No, of course not.'

'Okay, then.'

James sighed heavily and took a long sip of his coffee.

He should have something else did say — he _did_ have other things to say — but he'd burnt himself out in the explosive reveal and now he wasn't sure where to go from here.

He'd been bracing himself for this whole big, dramatic thing, but now….

Maybe everything didn't need to be a big, dramatic thing?

'Look,' Lily reached across the table and rested her hand on his. James stared at their hands for a moment before he looked up and met her gaze. She smiled at him and James inhaled softly.

'I can tell that you're freaking out about this, but honestly, like… I'm not cross with you. You might be friends with some absolute loons, but I mean — James, I don't know them at all outside the few times they've been in your videos, but I really don't think that they were doing anything malicious. It's a bit weird, yeah, but they weren't trying to hurt you or anything.'

Lily pulled her hand back and she grasped her cappuccino again. James flexed his fingers on the table.

'I just wish they would think,' James said. 'I know that Remus wasn't involved right away and he's usually the logical influence, but I wish — I mean, I just — how is this something that happens?! How do you start writing porn about someone that you're practically related to? How, at no point, are you like, "Wow, maybe this is a little weird"?'

Lily raised an eyebrow. 'How do you know they didn't?'

He sighed. 'Well, Remus might've done, but it ultimately doesn't matter, does it? They've still done it.'

'Yeah, but motivation is still important.'

James took another sip of his coffee and tried not to sound as petulant as he felt. 'I guess.'

Lily breathed a laugh. 'You know it is, you're just being obstinate.'

'Am not.'

Her smile widened. 'Yes, you are. Have you even talked to them about this? Properly?' She added, correctly interpreting the look on his face.

James sighed. 'No. We had a row about it the day I found out, but I haven't really talked to either of them since. And definitely not about this.'

She hummed through a sip of coffee. 'You should talk to them,' she said, setting her mug down. 'See if you can't get to the bottom of this.'

She was right. He knew she was right and he knew that it didn't matter that he _really_ didn't want to talk to them about this, because she was right — the only way this would get fixed was if he actually sat down and talked to them about it.

He told her as much and she grinned.

'I still can't believe you're not angry,' he said, shaking his head at her apparent amusement over his reaction to the whole thing.

'At _you_ ,' she said, still smiling. 'I'm definitely going to give Sirius the dressing down of his life when you finally introduce us.'

He snorted. 'Oh? Is that so?'

She nodded. 'Saying "he'll wish he was never born" is maybe a slight exaggeration. But only slight.'

James laughed. 'And what would I introduce you as? At this future meeting?'

He hoped to god that he sounded cooler than he felt because, right now, he was barely a millimetre away from having a complete meltdown.

But maybe he wasn't alone, because Lily's cheeks went the faintest bit pink before she looked down at her mug, and then, when she looked up again and caught his eye, he saw the slightest bit of hesitancy there.

'What do you want to introduce me as?'

Lily Evans, the most brilliant, beautiful person in the world. Lily Evans, quite possibly the love of his life. Lily Evans, the woman who he couldn't believe wanted him around even after his best friends had written porn about them.

'I reckon my girlfriend would be a good start.'

A wide smile spread across her face. 'I reckon you're right. We've already got quite a history, haven't we?'

James quirked an eyebrow and her smile hitched up just a bit higher. 'We survived the Titanic. _And_ we've shagged in a pub. If that isn't a solid foundation, what is?'

And though he laughed and shook his head at her, more than anything else, James felt himself getting swept up in the warmth flooding through him as she smiled at him.

She was amazing, she was, and _god,_ he'd never been so smitten.

* * *

James let himself forget, over the course of the afternoon, that he was due to talk to his pair of idiots.

He was too busy to really think properly about anything but Lily. About the way her hand felt in his when they left the cafe that afternoon, the sharp tug in his gut whenever she looked at him, and, after she pulled him through her front door, the feel of her lips against his.

There was nothing — _nothing_ — like kissing Lily Evans.

She didn't let him forget about his promise for long, though, because she reminded him (twice, because she knew he'd brushed it off the first time) as they were saying goodbye at her door that evening. He'd grumbled about it, but then she'd kissed him — right there on the sensitive spot just underneath his jaw — and said, 'Come on, James, promise me.'

He couldn't say no to that.

It was literally impossible to say no to that.

And anyway, even though he was still cross with them, he knew that Lily was right.

He had a feeling that would become something a theme of theirs.

* * *

 _WhatsApp Chat - 3 Musketeers but Hotter_

 _6 May 2017 20:11_

 _James Potter: hey are you guys doing anything tomorrow night_

 _Sirius Black: we're domestic queens now we mever do anything_

 _Sirius Black: why_

 _Remus Lupin: I resent that, Sirius, we're very busy_

 _Remus Lupin: (But yeah, we're free tomorrow)_

 _Remus Lupin: ((And every night for the foreseeable future))_

 _James Potter: brill look_

 _James Potter: I'm still really bloody cross with you both but Lily says we shouls talk about it already and idk i reckon shea right_

 _Remus Lupin: We really are sorry, mate_

 _James Potter: amd also shes got some things she wants to say_

 _Sirius Black: oh god what_

 _James Potter: no bloody clue, but id brace yourselves_

 _James Potter: shes lovely but she's tough my girlfriend_

 _Sirius Black: YOUR GIRLFRIEND_

 _Remus Lupin: HLAKGSMHSJGHSGJ_

* * *

Alright, so he had missed them a little bit.

* * *

 _WhatsApp Chat_

 _7 May 2017 15:42_

 _Lily Evans: Chocolate or wine?_

 _James Potter: what_

 _Lily Evans:_

 _Lily Evans: O R_

 _Lily Evans: W I M E_

 _Lily Evans: fuck **W I N E_

 _James Potter: that was so much effort for that_

 _Lily Evans: Will you just answer me before I come strangle you?_

 _James Potter: youd strangle your new boyfriend?_

 _Lily Evans: Erotically — I'm taking notes for Sirius' next fic_

 _James Potter: youre mean_

 _Lily Evans: You love it_

 _Lily Evans: Now please answer my question_

 _James Potter: well it depends who youre trying to impress_

 _James Potter: Remus would love chocolate but Sirius would love wine (red before you ask)_

 _James Potter: I don't know why youre impressing them anyway i thought we were gong to yell at them_

 _Lily Evans: Fuck_

 _Lily Evans: Okay, both it is then_

 _James Potter: omg Evans you dont have to do that_

 _Lily Evans: I want to_

 _Lily Evans: Alright, I've got to prep for this meeting so I'll talk to you later xx_

 _James Potter: xx_

* * *

When James met Lily outside the Southwark tube station that afternoon, she had a bulging Tesco bag over her shoulder.

He raised an eyebrow at her as he leant down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. 'What've you got? I thought you were getting a bottle of wine and _maybe_ a box of chocolate.'

'Well,' she gave him something of a sheepish look as she adjusted the bag with her free hand, 'when I got there, there were just — a lot of options. And so I couldn't choose.'

James sighed and held out his hand. 'Well, here, I'll carry it —'

Lily shook her head. 'I got it. I carried it all the way here, didn't I? I won't break.'

He breathed a laugh and rolled his eyes. 'Trust me, no one thinks you're fragile, Evans.'

She grinned as she reached out and took his hand. 'You're damn right they don't.'

They started down Blackfriars Road, their joined hands swinging easily between them. He knew it was ridiculous, James did, how this whole thing made him feel. They were just holding hands for god's sake, but he just couldn't stop looking down at their fingers, couldn't stop catching her eye and giving her what he knew was probably a very silly smile. He knew it was ridiculous, feeling this much about something so small, but he honestly couldn't help it.

'So why don't you tell me what I can expect when we walk in there,' Lily said, catching him looking at her again. 'Who are these porn-writing friends of yours?'

James sighed and Lily laughed, squeezed his hand, and stepped closer into his side. 'Oh, stop pretending you aren't amused.'

James frowned at her. 'I'm definitely not amused by the porn.'

'I meant amused by me. You're definitely amused by me.'

James snorted. 'Well, of course I'm amused by you. You're incredibly amusing.'

She grinned. 'Thank you. Now, seriously, tell me about these friends.'

James groaned. 'Lesson number one — never say "serious" or any iteration of that damn word.'

By the time they arrived at Sirius and Remus' place fifteen minutes later, James thought that he'd pretty well covered the basics. He knew that no amount of preparation could _really_ give her a sense of what it was going to be like, meeting the two of them, and James found himself hoping, as they climbed the stairs, that Remus, at least, would be on his best behaviour that evening.

James took a deep breath as they stopped beside the door and he intended to turn to her and check, just one more time, that she was ready, but Lily, assuming correctly, knocked before James could get a word in.

He could hear someone — probably Sirius because Sirius' bloody feet were made out of lead — walking towards the door and it was too late now to really do anything about it (unless they ran away), but still. _Still._ He had to ask.

'You ready?'

She turned her head to look at him, an amused smile stretching across her lips, and he knew she was going to say something (and, judging by the look on her face, it was going to be something very cheeky), but she didn't have time to say anything before the door swung open in front of them.

And that's how Sirius found them, gazing at each other, a wide, happy smile on Lily's face and, in all likelihood, a slightly anxious, probably mildly terrified look on James'.

'Hey lovebirds.'

Lily held James' gaze a moment longer before she turned and looked at Sirius standing in the doorway. He was leant up, because of course he was, against the doorframe, and he was smiling at them like they'd just done something deeply amusing.

Lily snorted. 'That's the best you got? I know that you can be more creative than that.'

James groaned before he could stop himself and Sirius and Lily both looked round at him. She raised her eyebrow, but Sirius got the word out first.

'What?'

James sighed and gestured for Sirius to get _up_ off the door so they could walk through. 'I just didn't expect to get here so quickly.'

Sirius pushed off the doorframe and stepped back to make room for James and Lily to walk into the flat. 'In my defence,' Sirius said, as James and Lily kicked their shoes off under the entrance table to the right, 'she brought it up, not me.'

Lily turned and eyed him for a moment before she slid the bag off her shoulder and caught it in her hand. 'That's true enough, I suppose.'

James gaped at her as she began rifling through the bag. Lily, obviously, completely ignored him.

'I've got this for you, Sirius,' she said, pulling the bottle of wine from her bag. 'And,' she pulled out the box of chocolates and scanned the room, her eyes lighting up when she spotted who she was looking for past James' shoulder.

'Remus! Hi, Remus, I'm Lily.' She held the box of chocolates out and James turned so he could see Remus walking across the room towards them. 'These are for you.'

'Oh my god,' Remus flushed the slightest bit across his cheeks, 'you didn't have to do that.'

'I wanted to.' Lily grinned and tipped the box at him again so he would take it out of her hand.

'I — well, thanks, but really you —' Lily raised an eyebrow and Remus broke off. 'Thanks. It's nice to finally meet you.'

Sirius snorted. 'I'm surprised it took this long, honestly. Ol' Jim hasn't shut up about you since you met.'

James hissed, 'Sirius!' but Lily just laughed and turned to look up at him.

'Is that so?'

And even though he definitely still felt his face heat a bit and Sirius was standing there smirking away and Remus was pretending none of it was happening, James couldn't help the soft, easy smile he gave her in return.

'Yeah,' he said, and his smile widened as he said it because just acknowledging it made him feel it all that much more. 'Yeah, it is.'

Sirius made a disgusted sound. 'Gag. Go be het somewhere else.'

Lily laughed. 'Says someone who spent hours writing a lot of straight porn for people on the internet.'

James and Remus groaned, 'Oh, god,' simultaneously, but they were drowned out — because of course they were — by Sirius' even louder protestations.

'Hey! I only did that because the people needed me to write it for them.'

Lily snorted. 'Did they? Did they _need_ it written for them?'

Sirius nodded. 'You should have seen the state of the fandom before I joined, Lils. It was in shambles.'

'And you joining it and writing stories about James and I somehow surviving the Titanic drastically improved things?'

Sirius nodded earnestly. 'Of course.'

Lily raised an eyebrow. 'And how can you be sure?'

'Because I wrote them, Lil, obviously.'

Lily burst out laughing and Sirius grinned broadly. 'Should I put the kettle on?' Lily and James nodded and said, 'Sure,' and Sirius looked towards Remus. 'Cuppa?'

Remus nodded. 'That'd be great.'

James shot Lily a look as Sirius walked off towards the kitchen. 'What happened to giving Sirius the "dressing down of his life"?'

Lily waved her hand impatiently and Sirius turned and shot James a grin over his shoulder.

'That was before she met me, mate. Realised how irresistible I am.'

They all held their fingers up at him and Sirius laughed the rest of the walk to the kitchen.

* * *

 _Excerpt from: Give it to me bby_

 _By jilysanschilly and jily5eva on Archive of our Own_

 _Published: 2017-05-28_

 _Kudos: 1648 Comments: 143 Hits: 2103_

 _James turned, pockets sticking out of his trousers like ears, and pointed his hips in her direction from across the studio._

 _And Lily didn't care that he was supposed to be imitating a stupid lie about elephants being particularly interested in her at the zoo, didn't care that they were in a studio full of people and that they were in the middle of filming a panel shoe, because his hips — even his fake elephant hips — were very sexy._

 _She pulled her mobile out underneath the desk and, while everyone was distracted laughing, sent James one quick text —_

Give it to me bby


End file.
